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How to improve the effectiveness of your questions in Briink
How to improve the effectiveness of your questions in Briink

This guide will help you make the most of your experience on Briink, including tips and tricks to ensure you maximize your results.

Briink Intelligence GmbH avatar
Written by Briink Intelligence GmbH
Updated over 10 months ago

Briink’s AI tools are designed to help ESG analysts take control of their data. This guide is intended to help you make the most of your experience on the Briink platform, including tips and tricks to ensure you are maximizing your responses.

Let's dive right into it!

💡 We recently launched a prompt generation feature, which automatically suggests ways to improve the phrasing of your questions. When you begin to build your questionnaire*, you’ll see an automatic yellow pop-up box next to each question with a proposed edit, which you'll be able to accept or reject. The tool will explain how the suggested edits will generate better responses, empowering you to learn more about effective prompt engineering.

*this feature is currently only available via the ESG Questionnaire Assistant.

Be specific.

If you are looking for a certain data point, try to add some guiding information. For example, by indicating that you are looking for company level information, and providing a reference year, the tool will better understand your request, and have a higher likelihood of performing the task as you expect it.

Poor performing prompt: “Scope 1 emissions”

Optimized prompt: "What were the company’s scope 1 emissions in 2022?"

A generic question leads to a generic answer in Briink. Remember, an AI tool is not a search engine, so you don't need to add keywords but full sentences.

Image 1: An unspecific question leads to a generic answer in Briink. Remember, an AI tool is not a search engine, so you don't need to add keywords but full sentences

Being specific and writing full sentences help you get better results with Briink.

Image 2: Being specific and writing full sentences help you get better results with Briink

Be clear.

Clearly state the requirements the tool must follow - providing anchoring key words, regulations, frameworks, hints or instructions.

Poor performing prompt: "What are the human rights topics that the company mentions?"

Optimized prompt: "What are the material human rights issues for the company?" Examples include Health and Human Safety, Slavery, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion matters.

Tell the model exactly how you want the responses returned to you.

Briink’s AI tools listen to the user!

For optimal results, you can ask the data you need to be returned in a certain format, such as:

  • Bullet points

  • Lists

  • Table format

  • Summaries

Please note: at this point Summarization is still a Beta feature.

Optimized prompt for summarization: "Identify each of the company’s emissions reduction targets, and then provide a summarization of what they are doing to achieve that target. respond in bullet points".

Image 3: Briink enables you to extract data in different outputs from just text, e.g. in our latest update we have added data extraction in Table format.

Avoid opinion-based questions.

Briink is designed to help you gather complex data, so that you can make judgment calls. But as an AI tool, it cannot form nuanced opinions of its own.

Poor performing prompt: "Is this a good ESG report?"

Optimized prompt: "What ESG frameworks does the company use to report against?"

The more questions, the better!

If you have a long question with a number of elements, or qualifiers, we suggest breaking those down into smaller parts to get the most accurate answer possible.

Poor performing prompt: "Is the company’s ESG report assured? At what level is it assured? What years is it assured for? Who is the assurer?"

Optimized prompts:

  1. Question 1: "Is the company’s ESG report assured?"

  2. Question 2: "If the company’s ESG report is assured, at what level is the assurance?"

  3. Question 3: "If the company’s ESG report is assured, what years is it assured for?"

  4. Question 4: "If the company’s ESG report is assured, who was the assurer?"#

Pro-tip: If you want to quickly screen one or more documents against a set of questions, you can use our Questionnaire Assistant. This new feature allows you to simultaneously ask a set of 10 questions to your documents, making ESG question-answering faster and as smooth as ever!

No need to be polite

While we all appreciate a “please” and “thank you”, the Briink models are happy to support you without the pleasantries. Keeping your prompt focused on the task at hand can help ensure that the tool is focused on returning the best possible answer.


We hope this short guide was useful.

If you have questions, or would like to give you and your team a head start with Briink and other AI tools, you can join our next bi-weekly Onboarding and Q&A session.

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